Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go on a camping trip, set up their tent, and fall asleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes his faithful friend. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see." Watson replies, "I see millions of stars." "What does that tell you?" asks Holmes Watson ponders for a minute. "Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow."

After a pause, Watson says: "Well, Holmes, What does it tell you?" Holmes is silent for a moment and then he speaks. "Watson, you imbecile, can't you see that someone has stolen our tent." There is a danger, when we come to Scripture that we look for the complicated rather than looking for the obvious

Faithful Instructions
Contributor: Randy Leckliter

There was a man who got lost in the desert. After wandering around for a long time his throat became very dry, about that time he saw a little shack in the distance. He made his way over to the shack and found a water pump with a small jug of water and a note. The note read: "Pour all the water into the top of the pump to prime it. If you do this, you will get all the water you need."

Now the man had a choice to make, if he trusted the note and poured the water in and it worked, he would have all the water he needed. If it didn't work, he would still be thirsty and he might die. Or he could choose to drink the water in the jug and get immediate satisfaction, but it might not be enough and he still might die.

After thinking about it, the man decided to risk it. He poured the entire jug into the pump and began to work the handle. At first nothing happened, and he got a little scared. But he kept going, and water started coming out. So much water came out that he drank all he wanted, took a shower, and filled all the containers he could find. Because he was willing to give up momentary satisfaction, he got all the water he needed.

Now the note also said, "After you have finished, please refill the jug for the next traveler." The man refilled the jug and added to the note, "Please prime the pump. Believe me, it works!"

We have the same choice to make. Do we hold on to what we have because we don't believe there are better things in store for us, so we'll settle for immediate satisfaction? Or do we trust God and give up all that we have to get what God has promised us? I think the choice is obvious. We need to pour in all the water and trust God with everything. Then once we have experienced what God has to offer, the Living Water, we need to tell other people, "Go ahead, prime the pump. Believe me, it works!"

And 3 more illustrations after the jump

This mp3 of the rarely heard “But If Not” speech by MLK is crucial to grasp his soaring moral vision and deep intimacy with the Bible. Essential listening for our times. Download the whole MP3 here. The following quote from the speech does it for me (speech begins at 32:32 into the track):

"I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”

(via Boing Boing)

Recently Pastor Mark Driscoll (a hero of mine) was out in Australia as part of his speaking tour. Unfortunately I didn't get to hear him speak but a friend pointed out this interesting discourse on what he sees as issues facing the church in Australia, particularly the Anglican denomination.

Although some points are skewed toward the Anglicans there is some gold in there for all of us like point 13:

There is a lack of missiologists A missiologist evaluates the culture and uses discernment to find the idols, "so missionaries can be employed and churches can be missional". "Theologians defend the truth of the gospel and missiologists then take it to the streets." When you stack the team with theologians and not missiologists" lots of people still don’t know Jesus.

Check out the whole list.

I had the pleasure of catching the train with a friend this morning. This friend and I debate and solve all the worlds problems every time we get together, it's a great iron sharpens iron time.

Out conversation momentarily touched on exclusivity and how it affects us. Consider this...

One day I bought the Serenity DVD box set, my wife and I watched it, enjoyed it and loved it. We lent the box set to this same friend and his wife, they watched it, enjoyed it, loved it and became fanatical about it :)
Not long after they ordered their own copy which didn't come in a cardboard box, rather it had a fancy smancy tin box.
Well I felt ripped off and envious of my friend because I didn't have the fancy tin box. So annoyed was I that I planned to go out and buy it.

Stop, hammer time!

What's going on here? I soon came to my senses and realized that my friend didn't really have anything more than I had, and even if he did, what does it matter?

There seems to be something wired into us that quests for the biggest, newest and shiniest objects. The tin box, the larger house, the best looking wife (I win there suckers! :)

I believe that this is part of our sinful nature that we can redeem. Instead of lusting after the better house or car or XBox, how about we redirect our desire into seeing God's will be done for the poor in our community. Let us boast about how there is no one in need in our community and spur the next town over to do the same.

I've been reading a lot about monastic orders recently and I think that they had something going for them, let's spurn the desire to accumulate treasures on earth and instead build up our heavenly storehouse!

It's about credibility, would you follow a pastor who built up his house instead of the church? The call to be an emerging pastor is in this detail, being counter to the consumer driven culture of this world.

Personally, I'm still trying to get the balance right but that's a step in the right direction.

I've been reading today a lot about Pope Gregory (590 - 604) and his influence on the English church as well as some of his correspondence as recorded by Bede.

I'm fascinated by him as a missionary leader, sending out missionaries to the Saxon's to bring them Christianity. It was in fact the second time Christianity was brought to the Saxons, the first time was by sword but this time by the accounts I'm reading were with love (missionary zeal).

Bede records many pastoral letters between Gregory and the Bishop of London which are worth reading and apply to today's emerging pastor but I want to paraphrase something from his Homilies on Ezekiel. It shows that he thought the contemplative life of monks would be best validated if it bore fruit in action.

"Of the two wives of Jacob, whom spiritual writers regarded as tech biblical types of the contemplative and active lives, Rachel was beautiful, but Liah was the fur tile one. Gregory himself thought he had married Rachel when he became a monk; but being pope was like waking up in the night to find oneself in the arms of Liah. It was a shock, but while there were those who still lacked the Christina faith, it was a necessary shock" ¹

As emerging pastors we need to be filled with that zeal for fertile living, lives that produce fruit.

 

^1. McManners, J. The oxford illustraed history of Christianity, p940

I've been polishing up my CV lately in anticipation of applying for a new ministry position somewhere. When I say polishing up I actually mean creating from scratch because I've never really had to apply for one.

So far my paid pastoral employment is as a visiting speaker to churches and a part time wage I draw from my church to support my college tuition. I've held a lot of roles but never have I applied outside of this church for a job.

I'm not jumping ship yet but I sought out some advice about what to put on a CV for ministry and there were some things I didn't think about.

There's experience of course. I detailed different ministries I had been involved with and my role within them. I included a very brief rundown of my secular work experience (my I. T. CV runs to about 6 pages at the moment) as well as something about my passion.

The advice I received from the head of leadership development for my denomination (the guy who also co-ordinates a lot of jobs) was to include two sections. Firstly "What I contribute to the team" and secondly "What I want to learn from your team".

Both of these gave me pause for reflection, this isn't just a job, ministry is a calling (something I actually said in my "Passion" section) so what is it exactly that I believe God is calling me to do? To learn and to teach?

In secular employment you can take a job that isn't a 100% fit because you know you can just move on (very Gen X/Y of me) but being called to a place to minister should take a great deal more of reflection, prayer and introspection, shouldn't it?

So emerging pastor, let's ask the questions, what do I bring to the team and what do I want to learn before we put in that application form. Perhaps God may want to inform us a little bit here.

How Many Saturdays?
Source: Jeff Davis

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital. Let me tell you something, Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.

'It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail, and by that time I had lived through over 2,800 Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1,000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away.

'I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.

'Now let me tell you one last thing before I take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday, then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."

And 4 more after the jump

I'm a firm believer that in God's iPod there are quite a few songs from the secular world and some noticeable absences from the Christian music world. There is music in the secular charts that speak to me of God's love and goodness and the (healthy) fear and trembling that we ought to have for him.

This conviction led me some time ago to declare that Alanis Morresette is my favorite theologian, that statement still stands true for me but she's got some competition from Josh Groben.

My wife downloaded Josh Grobe's "You are loved (don't give up)" from iTunes last night and I've enjoyed listening too it countless times since. It speaks to me about the nature of God and the fact that in our relationship with him he doesn't often take us around times of trouble but he will be there through it.

Here are the full lyrics.

Don't give up
It's just the weight of the world
When your heart's heavy
I...I will lift it for you

Don't give up
Because you want to be heard
If silence keeps you
I...I will break it for you

Everybody wants to be understood
Well I can hear you
Everybody wants to be loved
Don't give up
Because you are loved

Don't give up
It's just the hurt that you hide
When you're lost inside
I...I will be there to find you

Don't give up
Because you want to burn bright
If darkness blinds you
I...I will shine to guide you

Everybody wants to be understood
Well I can hear you
Everybody wants to be loved
Don't give up
Because you are loved

You are loved
Don't give up
It's just the weight of the world
Don't give up
Every one needs to be heard
You are loved

(source)

If you are one of the many RSS subscribers to emergingpastor.com you would not have noticed the site facelift. Why don't you come over and take a look. Soon I'll be adding some new contributors to emergingpastor.com, other guys and girls who are taking their ministry into the future.

If you would like to be a contributor too, email steven[at]emergingpastor.com

Oh, leave a comment on the design, I'm not really a designer and I tried my best :)

It's been a little full ministry wise lately, lots of worship leading and preaching.

I was preaching this Sunday on prayer, based partially on a Mark Driscoll sermon, and I sort of realised how much I love to preach. (My college lecturer for preaching says that all preachers just love to hear their own voice :)

It's a joy to get a concept, a point, an image, an idea across to a group of people after God drops it in your lap.

It's been quite a while since I last posted. The time gap weighs heavily on me, not because of an obligation to let you know what I'm up to, but because blogging is such a cathartic release.

Conversations with my mentor this week have highlighted the need to continue to let things go before you dry up and become useless. He picked up this post Empty Inside in particular where I made the statement "I feel empty inside, the tank is dry." He told me two things that I wont soon forget.

1. That in his work (he is the Pastor to Pastors for my denomination so he interacts with a lot of them), he see's this all the time. Pastors who have stopped replentishing themselves and have run dry. When you get to that point you start to dig in to the wrong parts of your character, the unredeemed parts, and you always end up regretting it.

2. The second thing he told me is that he doesn't want to see me ever writing something like that again.

He wasn't telling me to censor my thoughts, but rather to be more deliberate in how I plan my time with my family, church work, other work commitments and everything else. If I don't, if I continue to burn myself out, I might find myself looking back at my alienated family, failing ministry and failed life.

I read a story this week about a baptist pastor who was so consumed with his ministry that he didn't have time to mow his lawn. One night his wife reminded him that tomorrow morning all his daughters friends would be coming around for her birthday party and he realized that the knee high grass wasn't really child friendly. So in the middle of the night he went out and with a torch in his mouth cut the grass.
When he was half done he looked around and noticed that peeping behind the curtains were all his neighbours wondering what the hell was going on. At that point he realized that his authenticity with his neighbours was completely shot, why would they entertain a religion that keeps someone so busy?

It's food for thought.